1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to robotic vehicles and, in particular, to a system for controlling robotic vehicles. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system for controlling a number of robotic vehicles using a number of applications.
2. Background
A robotic vehicle may be a vehicle that moves without requiring a human operator to control the operation of the vehicle. A robotic vehicle may be, for example, without limitation, an unmanned aerial vehicle, an unmanned submersible vehicle, a cruise missile, a terrain mapping robotic vehicle, or some other suitable type of vehicle. The robotic vehicle may be controlled by a computer program running on a processor system. The processor system may be located in the robotic vehicle or in a location remote to the robotic vehicle. The processor system may send commands to the robotic vehicle. The robotic vehicle may perform a number of tasks based on these commands. These commands may be based on factors such as, for example, without limitation, input received from a human operator, decisions made using the computer program, rules in the computer program, and/or other suitable factors.
Further, a robotic vehicle also may be capable of generating and sending data to a processor system. The data may be, for example, without limitation, data from a sensor system in the robotic vehicle.
A number of hardware and/or software components may comprise a robotic vehicle. These components may be located in the robotic vehicle and/or in a location remote to the robotic vehicle. Further, these components may be tested and/or controlled by an exchange of information with a processor system. This exchange of information may be uni-directional and/or bi-directional. The processor system may be comprised of a number of computer systems with a number of hardware and/or software components.
With currently available processor systems used to test and/or control robotic vehicles, the hardware and/or software components in these processor systems may be customized for different robotic vehicles. In other words, the different hardware and/or software components may be limited in the number of different robotic vehicles and/or different components in the robotic vehicles with which the hardware and/or software components may interface.
Further, the development of robotic vehicles may involve designing and testing the different hardware and/or software components of the robotic vehicles. Currently available systems and processes for designing and testing these components may take more time, effort, and expense than desired.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that addresses one or more of the issues discussed above, as well as possibly other issues.